The original headline for this piece was supposed to be “people are so weird about Black women on the internet,” but that didn’t do enough. It doesn’t say enough.

It’s not just that people are some unspecified but supposedly harmless form of “weird” when they see a Black woman (or queer or femme) online speak on anything with any seriousness.

It’s that they’re racist.

People aren’t weird about Black women online.

They’re racist to them.

They stalk them, follow police, lie about their words/actions, get clout for harassing them and, in the end, play the victim when a larger account calls them out for contributing to or even spearheading harassment. They’re entitled to demand we expose our pain before they’ll even consider humanizing us… But then they’ll mock us for being human on main about the thing they demanded a front row seat to. They make friends who hate us and target us for years on end, gleefully sharing our pitfalls and flaws. They brag about being blocked en masse, without ever wondering why they’re entitled to our space – or why they want access to it in the first place considering how much they profess their hatred.

These people aren’t “weird”.

They’re fucking racist.

They are stalking Black public figures – or people they view as such because, in their time of being terminally online across decades they managed to collect a 4 or 5 digit following – because they think they should be where we are. They think that they have anything of value to add to the conversation. They think that we got where we are because we’re Black and not because we’re smart, or funny, or because we’ve been doing the work for over a decade in some cases.

The first time I “met” Ashley Reese, it was because people were being weird (racist) to her over her Snapewives piece for Jezebel. They’d declared that because of a throwaway line about Kylo Ren fans being Snapewives’ successors, she was part of my crew of “antis”. Because all Black people who dislike those toxic Kylo Ren stans and talk about racism in fandom know each other.

We’re friendly, and I hope one day I get to hang out with her when I’m in New York, but that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I’m just so tired of watching people be racist to Black women, minimizing our pain and the harm they’re causing to us… and get away with saying the most vile things.

Every time someone is mad at Ashley, they bring up her late husband Rob.

They taunt her.

They taunt a grieving widow still navigating life after her husband.

Over fandom shit like ships.

Over a purposeful bad faith reading of something she didn’t actually say.

Over whatever they’ve decided is a take worthy of reminding her that she no longer has the love of her life.

And it’s not just Ashley, obviously. I’ve seen people mock me after losing my dad. They actively got a kick out of the fact that I was grieving and that it impacted my ability to write the articles that paid my rent. They mocked my relationship with my mother – mostly fucked up fan fiction they made up in their heads – and tried to isolate me from my friends by telling them egregious lies about my behavior.

They understand that they can keep the bit going until one of us dies – and probably even after that – because the internet is hardwired to punish us for existing in public. They get clout for maliciously misinterpreting a Black public figure online. After all, they’ve taken us on or put us in our place where we belong.  Like I’ve said elsewhere, they don’t see this as racist or as harassment: its just justice.

Even when they’re caught harassing us or lying about one of us, they never get punished. They never apologize. They blame us for their active harassment, pop another egregious lie into the mythology they’ve written for us, and keep it moving. They will hold on to their hatred for years, surfacing like a supremely shitty sleeper agent to try and ruin our lives, our reputations, and our relationships (including professional ones). And they do this because everyone – even people who ostensibly like us – will bend over backwards to find a reason to excuse years of nasty harassment and declare that we deserve it for not being nice enough or having a “hot take”.

People aren’t weird about Black women online.

They are evil sadistic racists who take pleasure in the fact that they can stalk and harass Black women with impunity.

And fuck them for it.